In my post on Wednesday, I mentioned the Democrats’ attempt to scare young voters by talking up some sinister Bush plot to reinstate the draft. In that post, I showed that the only push behind a draft is actually coming from the Democrats themselves. Well, now cBS has jumped on the campaign trail once again with the DNC, promoting their anti-Bush agenda.

Yesterday, on cBS Evening News, they ran a story called The Issues: Reviving The Draft dealing with an “average mom” and her fear for her children. This purpose behind this “journalism” is, according to cBS, is to “focus on where the presidential candidates stand on major issues and how a vote for one or the other candidate might affect average people’s lives.”

Just a couple of problems with the story.

First, the “average” mom they used, Beverly Cocco is a chapter head for a group called “People Against the Draft”. Her activist group claims that Bush’s foreign policy is leading us towards the re-instatement of the draft. The group claims to be non-partisan, but it links to extreme anti-Bush groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R., NION. What a nice collection of “average Americans”…..

Hat tip to Little Green Footballs, who points out this attribution of Beverly Cocco’s affiliation with PAD wasn’t even included in the broadcast version of the story, and has since been “added” to the transcript on the cBS website to cover up their “omission”.

The story goes on to say:

“The war on terror will continue,” says the president. “It’s going to take a while and no, we don’t need a draft.” But Beverly’s not buying it. She’s a Republican, but also a single-issue voter. Would she vote for a Democrat? “Absolutely,” she says. “I would vote for Howdy Doody if I thought it would keep my boys home and safe.”

The reporter asks her is she would vote Democrat. An obvious tie into the underlying theme of the story that this whole draft issue is a secret Republican plot. The irony of the question, and her answer, is that as I pointed out Wednesday, the only legislation in Congress has been sponsored by DEMOCRATS… and ONLY Democrats!

Second, in a Bill Burkett-esque style, they’ve based their story on a thoroughly debunked spam email. Imagine a major media outlet running with a story based on spam. Does it get any better than that? The spam goes on to say the Bush administration is quietly pushing this legislation through Congress. But again, the only legislation in Congress has been sponsored by DEMOCRATS… and ONLY Democrats!

Then, the story continues,:

The head of the Selective Service believes he could start drafting people quickly. “I think we could do it in less than six months if we got the call,” says Selective Service Director Jack Martin. This time, Martin says there would be no long deferments for college students and a lot more people could be eligible for the draft than before: men and women ages 18 to 26 could be called up.

In a style reminiscant of Michael Moore, the story leads us to believe the head of the SSS is anxiously awaiting the notice to start picking kids up after school and shipping them overseas. To say nothing of the fact that the comments about “no more deferments and more people eligible” is quoting straight from the spam email.

Notwithstanding recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces — either with a special skills or regular draft.

But why should we let facts get in the way of a good hit piece? And did the good folks at cBS add the quote from the Secretary of Defense… the man who oversees the SSS?

“I’m not supposed to get in politics, but it is absolutely false that anyone in this administration is considering reinstating the draft,” Rumsfeld said, his voice rising. “That is nonsense.”

Of course, the entire story is premised on a debunked spam message and failed DNC campaign aimed at scaring young voters. So of course, they’d ask Dan Rather to get it all started:

It’s no secret: The all- volunteer U.S. Military, especially the Army, Marines and many reserve units, are stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan. So what about bringing back the draft? A lot of Americans are worried about that. Where do the presidential candidates stand? CBS’s Richard Schlesinger tells you in the “Eye on America” election series, “What does it mean to you?”

So the story is supposed to “tell us where the Presidential candidates stand” so we can determine “what it means to us”…. But less than five seconds into the story, they tell us that, “Neither President Bush, nor Sen. John Kerry has said he will re-institute the draft. In fact they both say they won’t.”

So what does it mean to me? It means cBS is once again campaigning for the DNC and peddling complete bullshit.

Posted by TexasRainmaker |

Warning: file_get_contents(http://webbiscuits.net/images/blank.gif) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: Connection refused in /home/texasrai/public_html/wp-content/themes/rainmaker/index.php on line 36